Origins and meaningThe term "gross national happiness" was coined in 1972 by Bhutan's former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has opened Bhutan to the age of modernization, soon after the demise of his father, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. He used the phrase to signal his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan's unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. At first offered as a casual, offhand remark, the concept was taken seriously, as the Centre for Bhutan Studies, under the leadership of Karma Ura, developed a sophisticated survey instrument to measure the population's general level of well-being. The Canadian health epidemiologist Michael Pennock had a major role in the design of the instrument, and uses (what he calls) a "de-Bhutanized" version of the survey in his work in Victoria, British Columbia. Ura and Pennock have also collaborated on the development of policy screening tools which can be used to examine the potential impacts of projects or programs on GNH.[1]

Like many psychological and social indicators, GNH is somewhat easier to state than to define with mathematical precision. Nonetheless, it serves as a unifying vision for Bhutan's five-year planning process and all the derived planning documents that guide the economic and development plans of the country. Proposed policies in Bhutan must pass a GNH review based on a GNH impact statement that is similar in nature to the Environmental Impact Statement required for development in the U.S.

The Bhutanese grounding in Buddhist ideals suggests that beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. At this level of generality, the concept of GNH is transcultural—a nation need not be Buddhist in order to value sustainable development, cultural integrity, ecosystem conservation, and good governance. Through collaboration with an international group of scholars and empirical researchers the Centre for Bhutan Studies further defined these four pillars with greater specificity into eight general contributors to happiness- physical, mental and spiritual health; time-balance; social and community vitality; cultural vitality; education; living standards; good governance; and ecological vitality. Although the GNH framework reflects its Buddhist origins, it is solidly based upon the empirical research literature of happiness, positive psychology and wellbeing.

Weakness of GDPAs a chief economic indicator, GDP has numerous flaws long known to economists. GDP measures the amount of commerce in a country, but counts remedial and defensive expenditures (such as the costs of security, police, pollution clean up, etc.) as positive contributions to commerce.[2] A better measure of economic well-being would deduct such costs, and add in other non-market benefits (such as volunteer work, unpaid domestic work, and unpriced ecosystem services) in arriving at an indicator of well-being. As economic development on the planet approaches or surpasses the limits of ecosystems to provide resources and absorb human effluents, calling into question the ability of the planet to continue to support civilization (per the arguments of Jared Diamond, among others), many people have called for getting "Beyond GDP" (the title of a 2007 EU conference[3]) in order to measure progress not as the mere increase in commercial transactions, nor as an increase in specifically economic well-being, but as an increase in general well-being as people themselves subjectively report it. GNH is a strong contributor to this movement to discard measurements of commercial transactions as a key indicator and to instead directly assess changes in the social and psychological well-being of populations.

While conventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH is based on the premise that some forms of economic development are "uneconomic," a concept that is advanced by the nascent field of ecological economics. Such development costs more in loss of ecosystem services, and in the imposition of "urban disamenities," than it produces as a positive contribution to well-being. (The difficulty, of course, is that for many forms of development, the gains are taken privately, while the costs the development imposes are born generally and publicly.)

Qualitative and quantitative indicatorsThere is no exact quantitative definition of GNH,[4] but elements that contribute to GNH are subject to quantitative measurement. Low rates of infant mortality, for instance, correlate positively with subjective expressions of well-being or happiness within a country. (This makes sense; it is no large leap to assume that premature death causes sorrow.) The practice of social science has long been directed toward transforming subjective expression of large numbers of people into meaningful quantitative data; there is no major difference between asking people "how confident are you in the economy?" and "how satisfied are you with your job?"

GNH, like the Genuine Progress Indicator, refers to the concept of a quantitative measurement of well-being and happiness. The two measures are both motivated by the notion that subjective measures like well-being are more relevant and important than more objective measures like consumption. It is not measured directly, but only the factors which are believed to lead to it.

According to Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton University psychologist, happiness can be measured using the day reconstruction method, which consists in recollecting memories of the previous working day by writing a short diary.[5]

A second-generation GNH concept, treating happiness as a socioeconomic development metric, was proposed in 2006 by Med Jones, the President of International Institute of Management. The metric measures socioeconomic development by tracking seven development areas including the nation's mental and emotional health.[6] GNH value is proposed to be an index function of the total average per capita of the following measures:

Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts. The above seven metrics were incorporated into the first Global GNH Survey.[7]

Ed Diener, a psychologist from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has developed a scale referred to as subjective well-being, a concept related to happiness and quality of life, which has been used to compare nations to each other on this construct.[8] This study found that "high income, individualism, human rights, and social equality correlated strongly with each other, and with SWB" (p. 851, abstract).

Adam Kramer, a psychologist from the University of Oregon, has developed a behavioral model of "Gross National Happiness" based on the use of positive and negative words in social network status updates, resulting in a quantitative GNH metric.[9]

In 2009, the 5th International Conference was held at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, with more than 800 participants. The conference was organised by Future Vision Ecological Institute and Itaipu Bi-national Hydroelectric Facility, in collaboration with the Centre for Bhutan Studies. The growing interest in GNH within Brazil has resulted from the work of Dr. Susan Andrews at the Instituto Visão Futuro which sponsored a series of events in São Paulo and Campinas in October 2008. Speakers included Karma Ura from Bhutan and Michael Pennock from Canada.[10]

The 4th International Conference on Gross National Happiness was held in Bhutan with a focus on Practice and Measurement. Results of the Bhutanese survey were presented and a number of international contributors discussed different approaches and challenges to the measurement and application of the GNH framework.[11]

The 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness Towards Global Transformation: World Views Make a Difference offered an opportunity to articulate Asian world views towards transformation in a "message to the world." It took place in Nong Khai and Bangkok, Thailand between 22 and 28 November 2007.

Implying the transition from a natural to modernized state, the 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness (GNH 3) took place in two locations: the first three days took place in rural north-eastern province of Nong Khai and the last three days in the urban campus of Chulalongkorn University in central Bangkok, Thailand. The organizers planned all activities so that participants were able to explore a large variety of venues, presentation and discussion formats and draw on the great variety and talents of the entire group of 800 participants who registered.

Main co-organizers were the Sathirakoses Nagapradipa Foundation (Thailand), Centre for Bhutan Studies, while local NGOs, progressive business group Social Venture Network and the government of Thailand in particular The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Thailand, have formed a support network together with research agencies and other government departments like the Thai Health Promotion Foundation.

"Rethinking Development: Local Pathways to Global Wellbeing," the Second International Conference on Gross National Happiness was held in Antigonish, Nova Scotia June 20–24, 2005, co-hosted by Genuine Progress Index Atlantic (proceedings online); the Coady International Institute; Shambhala; the Centre for Bhutan Studies; the Province of Nova Scotia; the Gorsebrook Research Institute at Saint Mary's University; and the University of New Brunswick.

The second regional Conference took place November 8–11, 2006 at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama. The conference examined Haida successes to apply non western economic and social modalities.

In a widely cited study, "A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge to Positive Psychology?" by Adrian G. White of the University of Leicester in 2007, Bhutan ranked eighth out of 178 countries in Subjective Well-Being, a metric that has been used by many psychologists since 1997.[12] In fact, it is the only country in the top 20 "happiest" countries that has a very low GDP.

National happiness is also sometimes classified under empirically studied "National Happyism," and psychologists, Drs. Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, have researched and analyzed what could be described as technological elements and characteristics of happiness for both individuals and societies.

Critics state that because GNH depends on a series of subjective judgments about well-being, governments may be able to define GNH in a way that suits their interests. In the case of Bhutan, for instance, they say that the government expelled about one hundred thousand people and stripped them of their Bhutanese citizenship on the grounds that the deportees were ethnic Nepalese who had settled in the country illegally,[13][14] though Bhutan's policies in this regard have no direct or obvious relevance to its use of GNH as an indicator guiding policy. Other countries, notably Brazil, Italy, and parts of Canada, are exploring use of measurements derived from Bhutan's GNH as their primary indicator of well-being. Critics say that international comparison of well-being will be difficult on this model; proponents maintain that each country can define its own measure of GNH as it chooses, and that comparisons over time between nations will have validity. GDP provides a convenient, international scale. Research demonstrates that markers of social and individual well-being are remarkably transcultural: people generally report greater subjective life satisfaction if they have strong and frequent social ties, live in healthy ecosystems, experience good governance, etc. Nevertheless, it remains true that reliance on national measures of GNH would render international comparisons of relative well-being more problematic, since there is not and is not likely ever to be a common scale as "portable" as GDP has been.[vague][8][12]

Alternative indicators of emotion as an analog to economic progress have also been supported by a number of NGOs such as the UK's New Economics Foundation, and are employed in some governments notably in Europe and Canada.[citation needed]. The Gallup poll system also collects data on wellbeing on a national and international scale.[15]